Mike Dano on LinkedIn: 5G providers in US expected to continue gaining customers in Q2 (2024)

Stable growth of 5G customers in 2024 Q2 in the USA: *According to financial analysts, the wireless industry is set for another quarter of moderate, stable customer growth, despite recent pricing increases by AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.*Notably, T-Mobile is predicted to lead with 650,000 net postpaid phone customer additions in Q2, surpassing its Q1 performance. AT&T and Verizon are expected to gain 260,000 and 125,000 customers, respectively, indicating a competitive yet stable market.*The end of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) raises concerns, as 60% of its 23 million recipients applied their subsidies to mobile services. This could impact low-income customers' ability to pay their telecom bills.Details here:

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MY LATESTVerizon has been steadily losing customers in its consumer business since the beginning of last year. But according to some analysts, the end might finally be in sight."New rate plans and C-band [5G network] deployment could help Verizon turn the corner," wrote the financial analysts at TD Cowen in a recent note to investors.It's clearly an important topic to Verizon's new consumer CEO, Sowmyanarayan Sampath: "Step one for us is to get to positive phone net [customer] adds in the consumer business. Once we do that, we'll get to our fair share [of industry wide customer additions]," he said at a recent investor event,according to Seeking Alpha. "But we're going to have to work up through it. Step one is to get to positive phone net adds, which we are working hard on."According to the financial analysts at New Street Research, Verizon ought to turn the corner in the fourth quarter of this year. The firm noted Verizon lost 263,000 consumer postpaid phone customers – widely considered the most valuable type of mobile customer – in the first quarter of this year. The company then narrowed those losses to 136,000in the second quarter of this year.The analysts predict those losses will shrink further in the third quarter of this year, to around 60,000. But the analysts believe the trend will reverse completely in the fourth quarter, with Verizon finally adding 49,000 new consumer postpaid phone customers.https://lnkd.in/dADkehHP

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NEWSluggish growth"During the first quarter, our Internet customer growth remained challenged by a low move and generally low activity environment, coupled with continued elevated competition at least in the short term and a small impact from fewer low income connects due to discontinued ACP availability," explained Charter CEO Chris Winfrey during his company's quarterly conference call,according to Seeking Alpha.According to the financial analysts at TD Cowen, big cable companies like Charter and Comcast collectively lost 186,000 customers in the first quarter, ahead of their estimates of 141,000."Cable has lost subscribers for a fourth consecutive quarter and [it's] getting worse," the analysts wrote. "The Broadband market is clearly maturing and churn is at historic lows, meaning there are less [customer] adds to go around. Therefore, even with FWA [fixed wireless access] adds trending lower, Cable will continue to struggle to grow subscribers in the near-to-mid-term."The situation is somewhat similar on the mobile side of the US telecom industry. Although AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile collectively reported more postpaid phone growth than expected, the TD Cowen analysts noted their gross customer additions were "light across the board."At T-Mobile specifically, some analysts worried that growth appears increasingly hard to generate in general. For example, the financial analysts at MoffettNathanson wrote that T-Mobile'sfigures during the first quarter"were met only after adopting a dramatically sweetened free-iPhone offer in the waning days of the quarter. That offer was pulled as soon as the quarter ended."Continued the analysts: "Industry growth is slowing, Cable is taking share (and threatens re-pricing the industry lower in the process), and the ever-lengthening upgrade cycles for handsets have to reverse eventually. None of that is terrifying. But it is worrying."MORE: https://lnkd.in/d7D3yR4A

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Telecommunications provider Optus is deploying a unique approach to winning back customer trust after suffering a data breach and one of the worst outages in the nation’s history: it’s letting anyone try its mobile network for one week for free.Optus lost thousands of customers as a result of last year’smass outage,which affected 10 million customers. CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin and other top executives resigned soon after. The telco is now offering a no-commitment trial in a hope that customers will be won over after a week spent testing its network.The trial represents an open challenge for customers to compare Optus to their current provider, according to the telco’s managing director of customer success Maurice McCarthy.“We definitely have been rebuilding the trust across our customer base,” McCarthy said. “We were obviously disappointed with the outage that occurred, and very upset by the cyberattack on Optus, but we’ve been working extremely hard. We’ve had close to a billion dollars of investment into our network and we’ve been very proud of the fact that we’ve been awarded again Australia’s fastest 5G.“We want to showcase that to people with no commitment or no catches involved.”During the trial, customers will have access to 30 gigabytes of data, unlimited standard national calls and 1000 standard national text messages over a seven-day period. The company is not requiring any payment details from customers.The trial launched on Monday and is available through the My Optus app on any eSIM-capable device, which is most smartphones released in the past few years. Customers can keep their current number and current provider, and use the app to switch between services.McCarthy said the free trial was the first from an Australian telco, and potentially the first globally.Will you be trying out the Optus network?More in my story for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.https://lnkd.in/gFNxdWPB

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NEWHere are some specific Q1 predictions for each of the US market's big wireless providers:The financial analysts at TD Cowen expect AT&T to gain 251,000 postpaid phone net customer additions. That's lower than the 424,000 AT&T notched in the same quarter a year ago.During the quarter AT&T suffered anetwork outageandcybersecurity incident, but it also managed to implement apricing increasethat ought to buoy its financials.T-MobileThe TD Cowen analysts expect T-Mobile to gain another 473,000 postpaid phone net customer additions, slightly less than it notched in the year-ago quarter. Postpaid phone customers are widely considered the most valuable type of wireless customer.T-Mobile continues to make progress in its efforts to expand its businessin rural areas, and to grow its sales among business customers.VerizonTheTD Cowen analysts expect Verizon to lose around 201,000 postpaid phone customers in its consumer division, though they noted Verizoncontinues to improve that business after years of losses.The TD Cowen analysts said Verizon remains focused on improving its consumer business throughout 2024 by expanding its midband 5G network, improving its local marketing efforts and leveraging its fixed wireless services. "A few of these drivers will be hitting full stride throughout the year," they wrote.https://lnkd.in/gf3sc3Sq

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NEWA top Verizon official said the company expects to stop losing postpaid phone customers in its consumer business starting in the fourth quarter. Such a development would reverse months of losses in the business and would represent a feather in the cap of Verizon's new consumer CEO, Sowmyanarayan Sampath."Sampath's goal is ... to get the positive [customer growth]," said Verizon CFO Tony Skiadas during an investor event this week,according to Seeking Alpha. "So, he's got good momentum. Our offers coming out of the third quarter are resonating in the market. We had good gross add momentum coming out of the third quarter. That's continued into the early part of the fourth. We'll see where that goes, obviously, we have the holiday season in front of us ... we like the momentum we have at this point."Specifically, Skiadas pointed out that Verizon gained 41,000 postpaid phone customers in its consumer business in the fourth quarter of 2022, and he said the company expects to exceed that figure in the fourth quarter of 2023.That dovetails with recent predictions from the financial analysts at New Street Research. The firm noted that Verizon lost 263,000 consumer postpaid phone customers – widely considered the most valuable type of mobile customer – in the first quarter of this year. The company then narrowed those losses to 136,000in the second quarter of this year, and further improved it to a loss of just 51,000in the third quarterof this year. The New Street analysts in OctoberpredictedVerizon would reverse those losses completely in the fourth quarter of 2023 by adding 49,000 new consumer postpaid phone customers.Verizon's losses are noteworthy considering the company maintained a dominant position in the 4G era. But Verizon's situation in the US market has slipped amid the transition to 5G, with rivals T-Mobile and AT&T – and the nation's cable companies – gaining hundreds of thousands of new postpaid phone customers every quarter.https://lnkd.in/gpgPTYDF

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Cable Companies Comcast and Charter both reported solid growth on their mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) connections (again). For the fourth quarter of 2023, Comcast added 310,000 mobile connections to its mobile virtual network operator (#MVNO), Xfinity Mobile, bringing the total to about 6.5 million mobile connections.Dave Watson, CEO of Comcast Cable, said the company is only at 11% penetration of wireless within its broadband base, so it has “a lot of runway ahead, and Comcast is consistently in the market trying new offers.”Xfinity Mobile total domestic wireless revenue increased from $883 million at year-end 2022 to $1.02 billion at year-end 2023, an increase of nearly 20%.Charter Communications added 546,000 mobile connections in the fourth quarter to its MVNO Spectrum Mobile, reaching a total of 7.8 million mobile connections. Charter CEO Chris Winfrey said, “Only 13% of our internet customers now have mobile service.”For the full year 2023, Charter reported #SpectrumMobile's service revenues of $2.24 billion, up 32.1% from $1.69 billion the previous year.In similar news, YouGov a British market research and data analytics company conducted a poll in late January of 1,072 U.S. adults who own a mobile phone, asking them their opinions about MVNOs.Asked how likely they would be to consider switching to an MVNO 29% said they were likely to switch. For those considering a switch to MVNOs (very likely or somewhat likely), cost emerged as a key motivator. 50% cited lower costs as a compelling reason for a switch. 45% appreciate the allure of more flexible contracts, while a third (33%) value customer reviews and recommendations.Among those unlikely to consider MVNOs, the primary deterrent was satisfaction with their current provider, as stated by 55% of the respondents.See more on Fierce Wireless: https://lnkd.in/g2zBfAb7

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🚨 Attention Mobile Users! 🚨While some carriers are busy increasing prices, at T-Mobile, we're focused on delivering unmatched value and performance to our customers! 💰Recent reports show that Verizon is hiking up prices, yet their network still lags behind T-Mobile in both performance and coverage. 📶Why settle for less when you can experience lightning-fast speeds, wider coverage, and unbeatable value with T-Mobile? Our commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction means you'll always get the best bang for your buck. 💥Don't let price hikes and subpar network performance hold you back. Make the switch to T-Mobile today and join the Un-carrier revolution! #TMobileForTheWin #UnbeatableValue #NetworkLeadership 🌐📲

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T-Mobile US Inc (NASDAQ:TMUS) raised guidance after reporting double-digit growth in adjusted earnings in the third quarter and a rise in revenue.The Bellevue, Washington-based telco now expects core adjusted Ebitda between $29.0 billion and $29.2 billion, an increase from prior guidance of $28.9 billion to $29.2 billion.Adjusted free cash flow is expected to be between $13.4 billion and $13.6 billion, an increase from prior guidance of $13.2 billion to $13.6 billion.In the third quarter, T-Mobile said service revenue of $15.9 billion, was 4% higher than the year before, and Postpaid service revenue of $12.3 billion, was up 6% both "best in #industry growth."#NASDAQ #TMUS More at #Proactive #ProactiveInvestors http://ow.ly/URc3104YYNp

I always get confused when companies report earnings so I only focus on 3 numbers. Overall, by looking at all three of these factors together, you can get a good picture of a company's financial health and performance. A company that is consistently profitable generates healthy free cash flow, and is growing its revenue is likely to be a good investment. However, a company that is struggling with any of these factors could be a risky bet.Here's a comparison of Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T for Q4 2023 in terms of Earnings per share (measures a company's profitability), free cash flow (money that is left over after a business pays its operating expenses), and revenue (gross sales):Verizon - EPS $1.08 (adjusted), Free Cash Flow $14.1B, and Revenue $35.2 BTMO - EPS $1.21, Free Cash Flow $4.0 B, and Revenue $20.3 BATT - EPS $0.62, Free Cash Flow $5.2 B, and Revenue $39.4 B(note - the B stands for Billions)As Everett Dirksen, Illinois US Senator used to say, “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money.” lolWay to GO Verizon!🙂

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